Posts Tagged with connections

Heya folks. Ok, I do wish there was a more sophisticated way of beginning these posts, something charismatic ya know? Like the subtlest of head nods and the hip-est of eye winks (eye winks? really?! finished school and all but here I am with preposterous language skillz. nice. ?) Alas, I have failed you and we shall continue, deprived of all the charisma and candy in the world.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, I’ve been thinking/noticing/staring-at-the-wall for a couple of days. Not continuously, duh. Figuratively. You know when you’re a noob and you spend so long reading about the thing you’re interested in or want to pursue? Like, for me, this whole blogging adventure to be precise. I like to pretend to be thoughtful and read/research on ways to improve or find those hidden industry secrets from acclaimed people on the internet. So to understand what those successful fellas did or didn’t do to make it as far as they have or had and try to take inspiration from their respective journeys.

Obviously, we’re lucky to be living in a world where all these stories of success and progress are so readily available. You don’t have to pluck a bird’s feather, get that high level bird-feather ink and sit under lantern light to finally write something, in hopes of getting it shipped to that one posh library in Oxford or wherever posh libraries used to exist. Nah, we got our Reddits and our Facebooks and our Youtubes and our WordPresses and so on, just endless, empty library shelves floating around in Space 24/7. How sick is that?!

But what I think hasn’t changed is the idea of making the right networks, the need of connections. I, as an aspiring creative, am accustomed to dealing with the creative aspect of this blog (i.e. post planning, writing, rewriting, designing, color picking etc.) on a fairly regular basis. That’s all pretty normal. Yet what isn’t as normal is having to deal with the social a.k.a business aspect of things. Marketing your creativity for the masses. THAT is hardcore stuff.

And let’s be honest here: I’m not that great at it. I mean, I try to publicise my blog as often as possible without sounding obnoxious but it’s still pretty much uncharted waters. Some people seem to have the business self in them oh-so-naturally, that you severely begin to criticise your not-exactly-introverted-but-still-mostly-shy behaviour. It only gets worse when you assess all these awesome creatives online, be it writers or photographers or youtubers or others, and you start to see this pattern where they were able to use the right sort of network or contact or even friendship, as a springboard for a much greater outreach.

Of course, that’s not to say it WASN’T because of their creative efforts, the time spent planning, writing, editing and all, the importance of those tasks can’t and shouldn’t be diminished, BUT the fact that they had that extra level of support can’t be ignored either. (I mean, living in Saudi Arabia..there really aren’t a whole lot of options when it comes to finding that creative crew of humans which means you seek out and truly treasure people or opportunities you may find! Hmm, perhaps it’s actually a blessing in disguise eh? ? )

All in all, I’m immensely grateful to the online connections. Will try not to sound too campy..but the greatest aspect of the World Wide Web is just how easy it is to not feel alone. To find those like-minded people. To realise that no matter how shy or introverted or weird you may be, out-there, somewhere, ARE actual living human beings who can look you in the eye and you’d know…